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I am a senior in college about to begin my student teaching for the semester in Massachusetts. I have been in the classroom twice a week in a Kindergarten and a Second Grade, and I feel I am always reminded of being a male. I am just wondering if there are stereotypes of males in the early education field. Furthermore, I feel like I am being judged often as I have stretched ears (stretched to a 6, so not too big) and do not look like a "typical teacher." I guess what I am asking is, does having a certain image hurt the way people look at me when dealing with children? I love the children I work with and love being in a classroom, I just feel like people judge me before they know my qualifications or what kind of teacher I am.

Being male is hard because there is always a bit of mistrust when you are new to a school. The stretched ears is going to be a bigger issue to over come though. Schools don't exactly hire too many people sporting counterculture styles.

Although I am from Michigan, I see the opposite. Everyone in my elementary education courses are praised for going into the field. Especially because it is not uncommon for some children to grow up without a stable or good male figure in their life. Whether there are stereotypes or not, you can do a lot to help many of those students. Good luck!

I'm a male ECE professional, and while I've be fortunate enough to not have experienced anything super awful, I'm definitely treated differently. In addition to being male, I am in my mid 20's and have a beard and lots of highly visible tattoos, so I understand how you feel about not looking like the "typical teacher".

While nobody implies that I'm creepy or anything, I find that the older (middle aged) women I work with treat me as if I'm incompetent by default because of my gender/lack of "mothering" experience. I find that whenever I enter a new teaching environment (new students, assisting in a different classroom, etc.), I need to prove my worth to my coworkers before they begin to take me seriously. As a person who strives to be the best I can possibly be at my job, this bugs me.

The parents of my students always appreciate or are amused by my presence in their child's classroom. Actually, single moms often try to flirt with me, and I'm still finishing the metric shit ton of cookies they made me for Christmas.

This is great to hear. Its nice to see someone in the situation I am finding myself in. All my teachers that I have worked with have been extremely nice and helpful, its just I feel others who don't know me have predispositions about me.

As a male social worker, I can definitely say it's a little bit different to go into a field dominated by women. I have generally found the reception to be positive, because there are so few males in the field. Specifically in the work I've done with children, people are ecstatic to have a male around since so many of the boys lack a father (where I have worked...obviously not true everywhere).

Anyway, you'll probably experience a little bit of negativity regarding your gender/age/appearance. Just show that you're competent and it will go away eventually. This sort of discrimination also lessens the older you are, as people tend to really respect and trust age/experience. If you really love what you do push through it. You'll find mentors and friends who you can confide this sort of stuff to and loving your job is a really rare thing, so it's worth putting up with some crap.